Zaption and Fairy Tales

I created a video lesson plan using Zaption to begin our unit on fairy tales.

Books I Need for My Classroom!

I am currently taking courses to get my reading license and eventually my masters in reading.  I have had an amazing professor who starts each class with amazing picture books.  He has the talent to find the most amusing books that kids will love and he recommends great ways to use the books in the classroom! 

Bring back the love of favorite books used for bedtime stories!

This book would be a great mentor text for read to someone.

This would be a great mentor text for making lists.  It also demonstrates teamwork is needed to reach a goal.

Great book for teaching phonics.  It could also be a text to teach word work.

I love Rocket books and now here is an alphabet book to complete the reading and writing collection!

This book encourages writing creatively!

Meet Your Teacher Video

Do you send a welcome letter to your students?  My school sends the letter with teacher announcement and other information.  Last year I decided to add a video about me.  I could virtually give my students a look into my life and how I began my career as a teacher and some of my interests.  I used iMovie and created a movie trailer (short and sweet and it is soooooo easy).  I dug through my baby album and my scrapbooks to put together a video of me for my students.  I just took a picture of those pictures with my ipad.  When my video was published to YouTube, I put the link in SafeShare.TV website.  Then I put that link in the newsletter and I also added a QRcode that parents could scan with any device to see the movie.  I use http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ to create links into QRcodes.  After reflecting upon the beginning of the year, it seemed easy to make connections with my students and it was a way for parents to connect their child with me.  I am hoping it eased some of the nervousness when beginning a new school year.  Here is my video that you can use as an example to get you started on making your own video.  Just click the link below!

Meet Your Teacher iMovie

I also use iMovie trailers for class field trips and family vacations.  For field trips, it really helps make a memory and I see my students remembering what they did and learned.

Field Trip iMovie

Reading is Thinking

In kindergarten, we have covered a few comprehension strategies.  The hardest thing for kinders to do is make meaningful connections that relate to the story they are reading.  I am currently taking classes to get my reading license and I read the book Comprehension Connections.  It is an amazing resource for teaching comprehension strategies.  Here is one way they described to teach meta cognition.  THE READING SALAD.

Skitch app for Field Trips

Use Skitch app to label pictures from field trips and review what information was learned.  Check out our pictures from the local apple orchard!

I am flipped and tablet certified!!

I recently discovered Sophia.org through Twitter and I found FREE...yes FREE professional development!  I just had to check it out!  I took the Flipped Classroom Certification and I loved it.  I started to dabble in flipped classroom this year and the tutorial was beneficial to keep me going.  After that certification, I decided to take the i-Pad Prepared Certification.  The links in this tutorial were amazing!  To complete each certification, one needs to create their own lesson or tutorial.  I have created a lesson that uses flipped learning and i-pad apps.  Check it out below!

Aurasma Pet Show 2014

My  Kindergarteners created their own talented pet out of recycled material. Each student created a video of their pet and its trick. The videos and pictures were uploaded to an app called Aurasma. During the pet show, the students scanned the picture using Aurasma and watched the pet come alive on the i-pad. Here are the pictures of students viewing the pets during the pet show! The students are learning that many devices can be used to inspire creativity! You can try this app on an Android or iOS device for free!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

I am granted with a challenge in my dramatic play area due to space! I am always trying to create an engaging area that promotes playful learning and socialization in a tight space. I was unsure how this dramatic play would turn out with the kids, but I took the risk. Turns out the kids LOVED it! I created the Wacky World of Dr. Seuss and the question addressed... What would you do if the Cat in the Hat came to your house?

I created hats for the Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and 2.  The kids had fun using their imagination in the wacky and CrAzY world of Dr. Seuss!

ScreenChomp and Rhyming Dust Bunnies

My new favorite app is ScreenChomp!!! As part of guided reading, I did a small group activity to help kids say and hear rhyming words.  I read the story Rhyming Dust Bunny by Jan Thomas.  We created an anchor chart for rhyming words and had to discuss what a dust bunny was before we read.  After we read the story, the students created a dust bunny on the i-pad with ScreenChomp.  Then they picked a picture out of the rhyming bag.  They drew that picture and another picture that rhymes.  I found it helped if the students said rhyming words into a whisper phone.  When they were finished, they recorded their rhyming words.  These were posted on their KidBlog to share with their families and they love listening to them during choice time.  Here is an example below.

 

Rhyming Dust Bunny

Crazy about i-Pads and Smartboards!

I am so blessed to have many forms of technology available to help educate my students in my new district and it is time to start blogging about it!  In my kindergarten classroom, I have 4 i-Pads hooked up to AirPlay and a Smartboard.

One lesson was completed during guided reading/writing, we were working on the words I and like and writing a complete sentence using those two words.  I had the students write a sentence about themselves in their writing journal (I like...).  Then using the app Popplet lite the students took a picture of themselves to place in the middle of a character web.  They typed their first "I like" sentence in a new bubble and then typed another sentence in the next bubble.  The app allows you to take a picture of the popplet and from there I posted it to my students individual Kidblogs.

 

I have a classroom blog setup through Blogger and my hopes for the blog is to inform parents about what goes on inside our classroom and to realize all the learning and hard work a 5/6 year old does in Kindergarten!  I find it difficult to get my students and parents to realize that reading is thinking!  To help, I have started having a couple of students draw out their thinking during shared reading.  I have used the app ScreenChomp.  ScreenChomp is a free whiteboard/recording app that allows the students to use it like a drawing app and then record what they are drawing.

Here is one example!  We were reading It's Pumpkin Time by Zoe Hall. I had two students record their thinking (I liked... It reminded my of...  How would I feel...).  First, they drew their thinking in ScreenChomp and then recorded what the story reminded them of.  Here is a picture of what it looked like.

The story reminded the student about our field trip to the pumpkin patch and all the work that goes into planting a pumpkin patch.